I spent almost two weeks in Finland, exploring, discovering and learning. Finland has long been a dream destination for me, so when I had the chance to explore this amazing city for several days, I packed my warmest jackets, my favourite camera and away I went. Winter in Finland is famous for the amount of snow falling every year and for how long the snow season lasts.

Helsinki was colder than I anticipated but the weather didn't stop me from exploring even its most obscure corners. There were so many things to do in Helsinki. Helsinki is a quaint European city with lots to see and do. I like it how you could have almost the entire place to yourself, especially during the cold winter season. Unlike the more famed touristy cities such as Madrid and Barcelona, Helsinki is the salve for the over-travelled soul, looking to take a break from bus loads of Chinese and European tourists. It’s a lovely place for winter-lovely travellers, on a search for a place of peace and quiet, for themselves. I am so grateful for every encounter in Finland.

A very happy weekend! My short photo essay under pen name 蓝天游 on Hayao Miyazaki Clock At Nippon Television Tower In Tokyo, Japan 日本东京《钟声响起走进宫崎骏的梦幻世界》is featured today! So happy to see it being featured nationwide in print! Special thanks to Lianhe Zaobao, you have made my day! :) Thank U so much 感谢、感恩 。

A very happy start to a great weekend! My photo essay under pen name 蓝天游 on Shanghai《游七宝古镇感受千年上海》is published in today's special NATAS travel edition LianheZaobao 联合早报旅游版 dated 22 February 2019! 感谢、感恩! THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I stole moments on benches during the winter in Finland. Sitting there helped me to take a real time out. A pause. It's a moment of just being me, doing what I wanted. No distraction, only nature. Sitting on a bench on a winter morning or night in December in solitude is a real treat to me. "Embrace it", I told myself. "It's good to be friends with yourself. It's a gift. Embrace it." And so I did. I sat on my bench and hang out with myself. I was having a great time.

I believe in order for people to remain healthy, strong, viable providers for their family and to be positive forces in society, they need to take time out for themselves. The world as we know it now – a society based on antagonisms and competition – has left many people feeling like most of their lives are lived against the world but little or not time is spent living in it. The only way I have found to constructively deal with this, is by taking time out through solitude. It is one of the most practical ways to reconnect with oneself, to regain clarity and to be reminded of one’s deepest passions and purpose. Spending time alone allows us, as humans, to see clearly that which either we can’t see, or society won't let us see, because we are so busy trying to outdo everyone else.

I adore being outside and sitting on a bench and just enjoying the sounds of nature, the gust of the wind or feeling a light breeze. Another thing I adore to photograph is benches and seats found in parks or on trails and paths or other outdoor areas. I love to photo benches with or without people on them. Maybe I long to have more outside time with the nature. This is the first time in which I really enjoyed being outside, especially in winter. I can actually participate in it rather than wish I could.

The tram is part and parcel of everyday life in Finland in much the same way as gastronomy is. It is a good reason to involve the tram in Finland in every possible sense. A quintessential Helsinki tram experience takes you past the city’s palatial monuments.

The living pace in Singapore is fast, and we demand high speed in transportation too. The slow going tram in Finland, by comparison, is like a gentleman walking nobly on the street and living out his own unique lifestyle. The tram came into service on dating back to hundred years ago, and is one of the earliest forms of public transport in Finland. Getting around Helsinki on tram is an interesting experience as you can observe and photograph the lives of people in a relaxing way without needing to worry about the snow, sun or rain. Most tram passengers are not rushing for time. Instead they may just want to take a rest and think during the ride.

In trams, the history is visible in the present. The tram simply looks very different from the other vehicles in the city and it is often pretty old-fashioned, even the latest versions of it. More importantly, surprisingly old models are in active use. In Helsinki, the oldest tramcars are actually older than many parts of the city.

A very happy weekend! My short photo essay under pen name 蓝天游 on antique cars in Prague, Czech Republic《穿越世纪的布拉格古典老爷车》is featured in today Lianhe Zaobao 联合早报 dated 9 February 2019! Thrilled to see it being featured nationwide in print! Special thanks to Lianhe Zaobao, you have made my day! :) Thank U so much 感谢、感恩 。

Notes on Finland as promised…Going on holiday and taking my favourite camera along can quickly turn into a photographic journey where you’re always in the right place at the right time. As a photographer, I love looking at great imagery. We all do. It’s what inspired most of us to pick up our own cameras and it’s one of the main things that continues to inspire us as we evolve as artists and image technicians throughout our lives.

I’ve taken my work and style further by incorporating a very tasteful element of HDR into my imagery. I’m not talking the kind of HDR that gets a bad rap, so much of which is overdone and just looks, well, you know…kind of “off”. There is also a time and place when doing HDR photography has its benefits. This is where ‘street’ style photography is perfect and I hope to work at it more as I found it can be liberating. ​

HDR photography can be a bit polarizing in terms of personal tastes. It's like opera and sushi – you either love it or hate it. All I can say is that personally, for me, I prefer the look HDR gives. Maybe because it’s my first experience with HDR, or maybe because I just feel comfortable with it.

When hectic times occurred, I would have to really boil down my priorities to the essentials. I succeeded in clinging to what I was really committed to, but that was because I made choices and, again, didn’t try to do so much.

Making a painter’s resolution is my new creativity in life besides my passion for travel photojournalism (I still have many other photo stories on Finland to blog in due course). I want to spend more time critically assessing my compositions before picking up a brush. I want to sketch an idea, play with color options, and think it through — really enjoying (and not hurrying) through the process. ​Artists tend to be a friendly, supportive, caring group of people, generally happy for other artist's successes, and concerned about the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. There are many artists and art organizations doing great things in the world and we need to support one another. The world needs more artists.

A very happy start to a great weekend! My photo essay under pen name 蓝天游 on Hokkaido Sapporo 北海道札幌《雪白世界之旅》is published in today's special travel edition LianheZaobao 联合早报旅游版 dated 18 January 2019! 感谢、感恩! Thrilled to see it being featured nationwide in print! THANK YOU VERY MUCH !

In December, I spent almost two weeks staying in Finland in my best attempts to experience it like a local. If you travel as much as I do and you are giant homebody on the inside like me, you really value unpacking your suitcase for weeks and tossing your crap absolutely everywhere. I like to think of myself as almost a turtle traveler – I like to take it as slow and mellow as possible. What’s the rush? You’ll miss the best bits.

Winter in Finland consists mainly of silence, darkness and stillness, making it the ideal environment for inner journeys. Days are short and the sun stays low on the horizon. Shades of white, black and grey dominate the monotone landscapes, long blue moments preceding the dark.​One of the most beautiful places I visited was the Töölönlahti Bay in Finland. Footpaths meander through trees along the waterside; within minutes you leave the city behind and nature envelops you. The bays were frozen over and snow glittered crisply in the sunshine. There is a walking path going around the Töölönlahti Bay and I love walking around to listen to pure nothing. This is what many of the locals do as well. To listen to the serene silence in Finland. Walking through parks in Finland was mesmerizing from the very first moment. No sound of cars in the distance, no birds chirping or wind whistling through the high trees near the frozen lakes. Only me, the stillness and our breaths that stopped for a while in awe. That’s the silence in Finland.

I used to blog pretty regularly and I really enjoy looking back through my old archives of posts. I felt that I did not blog a lot last year due to many other commitments. During my Finland winter trip, I’ve done quite a lot of self-reflection. I promised myself that I will blog more in 2019 and in a meaningful way. I reminded myself why I started this path years ago and I wish that I could continue pursuing this passion outside of a professional job.

It is wise for each of us, from time to time, to stop and evaluate our lives as we seek to make the most of them. The start of a calendar year provides an opportunity to look back at the decisions that shaped our lives during the past year and gives us an extra push to make adjustments for the next one. Every new January represents a natural opportunity to evaluate the direction of our lives, adjust course if necessary, adopt new habits, or make healthy changes.​I can’t say that I’m perfect or that I’ve achieved my ideal self, because there’s still so much I’ve to work on. I also think that becoming a better person is an on-going goal to be worked on, and there’s never a real end point to reach. Someone once told me that this isn’t about making yourself liked by others — it’s about becoming someone you truly love and adore, which will in turn attract the right people and opportunities into my life. I’m always grateful to that person who told me that because it reasonates so much with me.

There are actually things — besides Christmas — that I look forward to about winter each and every year. There’s something about winter holidays that I can’t seem to get enough of. Snow, of course, is magical, but there’s a slower pace in the cold and it’s completely acceptable to spend cosy hours sipping mulled wine or indulgent hot chocolate.

And I always love waking up to my street blanketed in a beautiful white layer of pristine snow. One of the things I truly love about snow is how silent it is. Unlike rain, you never really know it’s snowing until you look outside. Huge blizzards can happen in complete SILENCE. It’s eerie in a really magical way.

With this coming trip to Finland in two days’ time, I think winter is absolutely ON THE WAY! I foresee that i will return with lots of amazing photos and stories for publication next year and i can't wait to blog them in due course.

In the meantime, I’m wishing you all the blessings of a wonderful Christmastime and I hope Santa is good to you this year because you only deserve the best.

The gift of love. The gift of peace. The gift of happiness. May all these be yours at Christmas.

A very weekend! My photo essay under pen name 蓝天游 on Osaka 大阪《漫步大阪富田林市寺内町 回到江户时代》is published in today's LianheZaobao 联合早报缤纷版 dated 17 November 2018! 感谢、感恩! Thrilled to see it being featured nationwide in print! Special thanks to Lianhe Zaobao, you have made my day! :)

This is my last series of street photography in Hong Kong using a Fisheye lens. Fisheye lenses are often considered a ‘no-no’ among professional landscape and cityscape photographers. People see them as not much more than a gimmick. I often hear complaints about fisheye lenses because of ‘that ugly distortion’. I am a one camera one lens person and have strongly benefited from this approach, as it makes me pay more attention to what's happening on the street rather than worrying about which camera or lens combination would work best for a particular type of scene.

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about fisheye lenses myself. However, after using the fisheye for a while I slowly began to love it. There are just so much possibilities with fisheye lenses. And most important of all, they are super fun to use. Just think of crazy vertigos from rooftops or images in which distorted lines actually give meaning to an image. My fisheye lens has become a tool for so many interesting shots, and it’s now one of my favourite lenses.

If you ever happen to be in the distinctly working class area of Ma Tau Kok deep in the entrails of eastern Kowloon Hong Kong, you might come across a set of western-style red brick buildings that contrast neatly with the surrounding residential apartments. This is the Cattle Depot Artist Village, a former government slaughterhouse now converted to artist studios and exhibition spaces.

​​For nearly a century the Depot was used as an animal quarantine area and abattoir centre. It was finally closed down in 1999 after concerns from neighbouring residents regarding the hygiene of a slaughterhouse in a densely populated urban area. Today the cattle quarantine has been moved north to Sheung Shui, near the Mainland border, while the old Cattle Depot renovated and designated a historical monument. The complex now houses the studios and offices of about 15 independent artists and artist groups. Creativity flows freely within the spacious structures of the village, a rarity in land-scarce Hong Kong.